New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 12, Number 1 of Illumination (University of Missouri)

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 13, Number 3 of Explore (University of Florida)

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 9, Number 2 of MSU Today (Michigan State University)

An eradicated killer

The Demon in the Freezer: How smallpox, a disease of officially eradicated twenty years ago, became the biggest bioterrorist threat we now face.

Winner, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2000. (Richard Preston, The New Yorker)

Friday poll results

Are you on Facebook?

• Yes, I use it all the time: 13 votes (37%)


• I set up a profile, but don't really do anything with it: 8 votes (22%)


• No, I decided not to: 10 votes (28%)


• Face-what? 4 votes (11%)

Writing quote of the day

"In writing, assume full rationality. Assume your audience is at its best and that you have to live up to it. That is, establish your general view of the audience, and then proceed as if you were writing to yourself as a member of that audience -- at your best, most perceptive potential. You must project the most cognitively severe mind -- and the only mind that you can project completely is your own at its most consistent, clearest level of functioning. In that sense, write as if you are trying to convince yourself." Ayn Rand, The Art of Nonfiction 22-23 (1969; Robert Mayhew ed., 2001).

The Year in Pictures, Part 3

The third and final in boston.com's series

The Year in Pictures, Part 2

From boston.com's Big Picture series

The Year in Pictures, Part 1

From boston.com's Big Picture series

How much do I hate this writer?

Private Library from A Space In Time on Vimeo.

A short film about New York architect Andrew Berman's dream project.
Commissioned to design a writing studio in the woods in Long Island, he took the challenge and created a building which seems to float in a sea of foliage.

http://vimeo.com/1696112 (From Vimeo)

Wednesday coffee break: 10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy

You can read the full list, with explanations. Or skip to the condensed version below. (alternet.org)

1. Savor Everyday Moments
2. Avoid Comparisons
3. Put Money Low on the List
4. Have Meaningful Goals
5. Take Initiative at Work
6. Make Friends, Treasure Family
7. Smile Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
8. Say Thank You Like You Mean It
9. Get Out and Exercise
10. Give It Away, Give It Away Now!

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 23, Number 2 of Coastal Heritage (South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium)

The Big Picture: riots in Greece

"On the night of Saturday, December 6th, two Special Guards of the Greek police clashed with a small group of young men... This incident sparked an immediate and widespread response in the form of angry demonstrations and riots..." (boston.com)

Daily Routines

A site all about how writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days.

dailyroutines.typepad.com

From Vladimir Nabokov's entry: "Summers I spend in the stumbling pursuit of lepidoptera on flowery slopes and mountain screes; and, of course, after my daily hike of fifteen miles or more, I sleep even worse than in winter. My last resort in this business of relaxation is the composing of chess problems. The recent publication of two of them (in the Sunday Times and The Evening News of London) gave me more pleasure, I think, than the printing of my first poems half a century ago in St. Petersburg."

"Hot Housewives in action!"

Science journal mistakenly uses flyer for Macau brothel to illustrate report on China (From The Independent.)

"There were red faces on the editorial board of one of Germany's top scientific institutions, the Max Planck Institute, after it ran the text of a handbill for a Macau strip club on the front page of its latest journal. Editors had hoped to find an elegant Chinese poem to grace the cover of a special issue, focusing on China, of the MaxPlanckForschung journal, but instead of poetry they ran a text effectively proclaiming 'Hot Housewives in action!' on the front of the third-quarter edition. Their 'enchanting and coquettish performance' was highly recommended."

Pity the poor rich

Rich Kid Syndrome: America’s burgeoning money culture is producing a record number of heirs -- but handing down values is harder than handing down wealth. (Jennifer Senior, New York magazine)

"Almost everyone who’s ever worked with rich children or their parents has a making-the-bed story. It’s a chestnut, a cliché almost, a cautionary tale about the first twinkle of entitled behavior in a lifetime of potential cupidity, and it goes something like this: Mom wanders into the bedroom, notices her child’s bed is still in a rumple, and asks the child to tidy it up. The child, usually about 7 and suddenly wise to the hidden economy of the house, replies, “That’s not my job. She’s paid to do that,” and points to the housekeeper. Susan Bradley, founder of the Sudden Money Institute, once ran a forum for wealthy parents at which one of them reported that their child was paying the housekeeper to make his bed. “And everyone thought this was hilarious and very enterprising, showing early business capabilities and that kind of thing,” says Bradley."

A vanishing breed?

The soon-to-be-lost art of science reporting: "While all eyes have been focused on the potential disintegration of the auto industry, a surprisingly silent and astonishingly broad purging has been taking place throughout some of America’s major news media. And while some may immediately react with, “It serves them right,” the truth is that the scientific and medical communities may suffer the most from this loss." (Earle Holland, Ohio State Univ.)

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 8, No. 1 of Washington State Magazine, Winter 2008/9.

Now read this

Up Then Down: The lives of elevators. (Nick Paumgarten, New Yorker)

The Mad Scientist, Bringing Back the Dead

If all profiles of scientists were only half as good as this one of Mark Roth... (Tom Junod, Esquire)

Wednesday Nyuk-nyuk

Bumper sticker on car outside my office:

WITCHES PARKING ONLY
all others will be toad

Michael Moore weighs in on the Big 3 Loans

"...And Congress must do all this by NOT giving GM, Ford and Chrysler the $34 billion they are asking for in 'loans' (a few days ago they only wanted $25 billion; that's how stupid they are -- they don't even know how much they really need to make this month's payroll. If you or I tried to get a loan from the bank this way, not only would we be thrown out on our ear, the bank would place us on some sort of credit rating blacklist)." An interesting proposal here.

Tuesday coffee break

Scared of Santa: 46 pics from the Chicago Tribune

Friday poll results

As of now, how likely is it that you will be able to attend the URMA meeting (in College Station, TX) in 2009?

• I'll definitely be there: 6 votes (11%)


• More than likely, I'll be there: 20 votes (38%)


• It's not likely that I can come: 17 votes (32%)


• I won't be attending: 9 votes (17%)

Friday poll results

Pre-URMA, what was your journalism background?

• Both a journalism degree and professional journalism experience: 16 votes (48%)


• Journalism degree: 4 votes (12%)


• Professional journalism experience: 6 votes (18%)


• Neither: 7 votes (21%)

Was Darwin Wrong?

Almost half of Americans don't buy evolution, but genetic data, antibiotic-resistant germs, and the anklebone of a fossil whale help build the case.

Winner, essays, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2005. (David Quammen, National Geographic)

LIFE photos

LIFE magazine and Google have teamed up to make a searchable archive of millions of LIFE photos, most of which were never published. Check it out here.

(At right: Encased in plaster from neck to waist, children suffering from tuberculosis of the spine relaxing in the sun outside mission hospital, where they will stay for two years. 1949.)

Wednesday coffee break

• Horse fat, rubbing alcohol, antibiotics: just some of the stuff that's in your fabric softener (wired.com)


• How Science Supersized Your Thanksgiving Dinner (wired.com)

Tuesday coffee break: Time Warner Cable = Men Rewrite Cabal

I just got an email from Time Warner Cable, which informed me that "you can't spell Happy Holidays without HD." I had to admit that they were right. Which got me wondering (with a little help from the Internet Anagram Servant) what other things you couldn't spell Happy Holidays without:

a shy lady hippo
oh pay, sly aphid
I plop shady hay
ladyship
haploid
payload
dippy
aloha
plaid
oldish
and so on...

Marshall + Moon + New Deal + Vietnam + ....

The bailout cost more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war, and NASA's lifetime budget--combined.

Barry Ritholtz (via BoingBoing) says:

In doing the research for the "Bailout Nation" book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective. If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

Weigh in on URMA 2009

URMA 09 takes place from May 26 to May 29, 2009, in College Station, Texas. College Station's Easterwood Airport is served by Continental (connections through George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston) and American Eagle (connection through DFW Internationall). Nearest big-plane airports are Austin Bergstrom Airport (90 mins by car to College Station) and George Bush Intercontinental in Houston (90 mins by car).

Related poll: As of now, how likely is it that you will be able to attend the URMA meeting in 2009? (Poll closed.)

Friday poll results

On a scale of 0 to 10, how happy are you in your job?

• 10 (Wouldn't change a thing): 3 votes (10%)


• 9: 4 votes (14%)


• 8: 13 votes (46%)


• 7: 3 votes (10%)


• 6: 1 vote (3%)


• 5 (Neither happy nor unhappy): 1 vote (3%)


• 4: --


• 3: --


• 2: 2 votes (7%)


• 1: --


• 0 (Please get me out of here): 1 vote (3%)

A better brew

The Rise of Extreme Beer: "Beer has lagged well behind wine and organic produce in the ongoing reinvention of American cuisine. Yet the change over the past twenty years has been startling. In 1965, the United States had a single craft brewery: Anchor Brewing, in San Francisco. Today, there are nearly fifteen hundred. In liquor stores and upscale supermarkets, pumpkin ales and chocolate stouts compete for cooler space with wit beers, weiss beers, and imperial Pilsners. The King of Beers, once served in splendid isolation at many bars, is now surrounded by motley bottles with ridiculous names, like jesters at a Renaissance fair: SkullSplitter, Old Leghumper, Slam Dunkel, Troll Porter, Moose Drool, Power Tool, He’brew, and Ale Mary Full of Taste." (New Yorker)

What matters, what separates you from home, is time

"Two astronauts trapped on the International Space Station as a result of the shuttle Columbia disaster literally had only one chance to make it back to Earth safely. 'Home' is a dramatic and revealing story about one of the longest stays in space, the mourning for lost colleagues, and the tortured and nearly deadly journey back."

Winner, feature writing, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2005 (Chris Jones, Esquire magazine)

160 stitches...

"Here's the thing about getting bitten by a shark: No one believes it actually happened. Not your boss. Not your swim coach. Not even your mom." (lohud.com)

Review of Her Toddler's Pretend Restaurant

"My two-and-a-half year old, Lily, has opened what she calls "The Cafe Restaurant," and although the service is terrible, the food inedible, and you have to sit on the living room floor, it has become one of my favorite eating destinations of all time....

"Here's an example of a typical ordering experience:

Lily: Order something, please.
Mom: OK, do you have coffee?
Lily: No. No coffee at the Cafe Restaurant. Only water and tea.
Mom: OK, tea please.
Lily: No tea. Only water.
Mom: OK, water.
Lily: Do you want coffee?
Mom: Well ... actually, yes.
Lily (Handing me a toy tomato) Here."

Genome Tome

Twenty-three ways of looking at our ancestors.

Winner, feature writing, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2006 (Priscilla Long, American Scholar)

At this moment in time

Oxford Researchers List Top 10 Most Annoying Phrases, including:

10 - It's not rocket science
9 - 24/7
8 - Shouldn't of

Read the rest... (wired.com)

A Matter Of Life and Death

"It was cancer -- a brutally sudden death sentence: the doctors told the author she had probably less than six months. For a woman with two young children and a full life, that prognosis was devastating, but also, in some ways, oddly liberating. And so began more than three years of horror, hope, and grace, as she learned to live, and even laugh, on borrowed time."

Winner, Essays, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2006 (Marjorie Williams, Vanity Fair)

Upon This Rock

"Rock music used to be a safe haven for degenerates and rebels. Until it found Jesus..."

Finalist, feature writing, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing 2006 (John Jeremiah Sullivan, GQ)

Many reasons to be freaked out by parasites.

Zombie Animals and the Parasites that Control Them

"It might sound like sci-fi, but plenty of parasites can control the minds of caterpillars, roaches, crabs, and maybe even us. In many cases, scientists don't know exactly how these creatures achieve mind control." (From Discover Magazine)

Research that matters

Researchers at Plymouth University in England, with a small Arts Council grant, could not quite test whether an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters could produce the works of Shakespeare. But they did see what six Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys would write with a computer over a four-week period. According to a report in The Guardian, the apes produced about five pages of text between them, mostly consisting of the letter S. According to professor Geoff Cox, the monkeys spent a lot of time sitting on the keyboard. (The Guardian, 5-9-2003)

Some of us fly, all of us fall

The Last Outlaw: "Waylon's gone, Cash has been laid to rest. But Merle Haggard stands as country's remaining black-hat rebel, the last man singing for the underdog."

Finalist, profile writing, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2006. (Chris Heath, GQ)

Friday poll results

Have you ever been so infuriated, irked, offended, or exasperated by a magazine that you canceled your subscription?

• Yes: 9 votes (40%)


• Not yet: 11 votes (50%)


• I'd never do that: 2 votes (10%)

Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Death of a Mountain: "Instead of excavating the contour of a ridge side, as strip miners did throughout the 1960s and '70s, now entire mountaintops are blasted off, and almost everything that isn't coal is pushed down into the valleys below.... I have come to Lost Mountain because in February Leslie Resources Inc. was granted a state permit to mine this ridgeline. I came here to see what an eastern mountain looks like before, during, and after its transformation into a western desert."

Finalist, reporting, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2006. (Erik Reece, Harper's Magazine)

Unintentionally(?) funny headline of the week

Experts: Paranoia may be more common than thought (yahoo.com)

Tuesday coffee break: cold down there

Very cool pictures of Antarctica (and no, those aren't color gels)

Friday poll results

How much would you be willing to pay to read your favorite magazine if it began publishing only online?

• I'd pay just as much as I do for the print version: 2 votes (18%)
  
• I'd pay 75% of the cost of the print version: 2 votes (18%)
  
• I'd pay 50% of the cost of the print version: 1 vote (9%)
  
• I'd pay 25% of the cost of the print version: 4 votes (36%)
  
• Nothing: 2 votes (18%)
  

Inside Scientology

Inside Scientology: Unlocking the complex code of America's most mysterious religion. Finalist, reporting, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2007. (Janet Reitman, Rolling Stone)

Tuesday coffee break

• Amazing video of a mimic octopus


• Brain slows at 40, starts body decline


• Everyday stuff with forgotten names

Friday poll results

Would you pay to read a magazine that only published online?

• Sure: 2 votes (9%)


• It would have to be a really good magazine: 14 votes (63%)


• No way: 6 votes (27%)

He knew how the bombs worked

The School: "On the first day of school in 2004, a Chechen terrorist group struck the Russian town of Beslan. Targeting children, they took more than eleven hundred hostages."

Winner, reporting, American Society of Mag. Editors' "Best American Magazine Writing, 2007." (C.J. Chivers, Esquire magazine)

Red Sex, Blue Sex

Why do so many evangelical teenagers become pregnant? (new yorker)

ASME's Top 40

American Society of Magazine Editors' Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years. See also: ASME's 2008 Best Magazine Cover Winners and Finalists

Tuesday coffee break

20 Wonders of the Microscopic World (Env. Grafitti)

Friday poll results

If your favorite (non-URMA) print magazine decided to suspend printing and publish only online (for free), would you still read it regularly?

• Yes, I'd check the site all the time: 3 votes (13%)


• Sure, I'd read it once a week or so: 6 votes (27%)


• I guess I'd visit the site if/when I remembered: 12 votes (54%)


• No way: 1 vote (4%)

genetics shemetics

Everyone see this?

Sarah Palin does science.

I kid you not. Genetics research. who needs it.

The things he carried

As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social network of male bathroom users to report my suspicious behavior, I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver's license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass... (The Atlantic Online)

Friday poll results

On average, how many times per year do you travel for magazine-related work?

• More than four times: 1 respondent (5%)


• Four times: 1 respondent (5%)


• Three times: 3 respondents (15%)


• Two times: 5 respondents (26%)


• One time: 6 respondents (31%)


• Travel? What's that? 3 respondents (15%)

Monday coffee break

• WWII Posters (flickr)


• 50 Beautiful Movie Posters (smashing magazine)


• Jazz for the Eye: jazz photography by William Claxton (1928-2008)


• Too weird: Zombie Animals and the Parasites that Control Them (disover mag)

Friday poll results

(Jason here, posting as Margarite because there's something screwy with my Google account.)

Last week's poll:

Did the VP debate change your opinion of the VP candidates?

• Nope. 17 votes (50%)


• Palin looks better to me now. 6 votes (17%)


• Palin looks worse to me now. 4 votes (11%)


• Biden looks better to me now. 14 votes (41%)


• Biden looks worse to me now. 3 votes (8%)

Asexual reproduction in sharks

Although CNN seems to think "virgin birth" sounds better.

"In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female blacktip shark in a Virginia aquarium contained no genetic material from a male."

DNA test proves it -- baby shark has no father (CNN.com)

What My Copy Editor Taught Me

What My Copy Editor Taught Me (New York Times)

"Helene had no literary theories — she had literary values. She valued clarity and transparency. She had nothing against style, if it didn’t distract from the material. Her blue pencil struck at redundancy, at confusion, at authorial vanity, at the wrong and the false word, at the unearned conclusion. She loved good writing, therefore she loved the reader: good writing did not cause the reader to stumble over meaning."

Street cred in Southwest Virginye

Bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley lends his voice.

http://www.folo.us/2008/10/02/ralph-stanley-cuts-the-best-radio-ad-of-the-cycle/

Listen for the unofficial URMA anthem, "Rank Stranger," playing in the background.

Nature makes a funny

"Yes, these are really the front and back covers of this week’s issue of Nature. Really. The dog on the left looks so hopeful. The dog on the right... confused." (The Scientific Activist)
Tip of the hat to: Melissa Blouin.

Friday poll results

Realistically, who do you think will win the U.S. presidential election?

• Obama, and I will rejoice: 30 votes (75%)


• Obama, and I won't be happy: 3 votes (7%)


• McCain, and I'll be happy: 0 votes


• McCain, and I am checking New Zealand's citizenship requirements: 7 votes (17%)

Scientists trace AIDS virus origin to 100 years ago

The AIDS virus has been circulating among people for about 100 years, decades longer than scientists had thought, a new study suggests. (From CNN.com)

I'm betting this is gonna make a really cool story in the Univ of Arizona magazine.

U. of Richmond's Road Warrior

University of Richmond Chancellor E. Bruce Heilman, 82, sets off on October 1 to ride his motorcycle from Richmond, Va., to San Diego -- covering up to 250 miles per day for 19 days. It's a reverse route across the states he hitchhiked through as a 20-year-old post-World War II Marine. (Chronicle of Higher Ed)

The debate in 1 minute

Miss the first debate? Here it is, edited down to one minute.

Friday poll results

How many (non-URMA) magazines do you receive per month?

• none: one vote (5%)


• one: one vote (5%)


• two: one vote (5%)


• three: four votes (20%)


• four: one vote (5%)


• more than four: thirteen votes (65%)

Somebody just haaaaad to have it.

Ancient Petroglyph Stolen From Cliff (kpho.com)

Conrad & Co., have you guys heard anything more about this?

Rubber Ducky, you're the one.

Rubber ducks aid in NASA study (CNN.com)

"In the name of climate change science, researchers at NASA have dropped 90 rubber ducks into holes of Greenland's fastest moving glacier: the Jakobshavn Glacier in Baffin Bay."

Old, grizzled, third-party candidate may steal support from McCain

Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

The Big Picture

Scenes from India (boston.com)

Sam Harris on Palin

"Ask yourself: how has 'elitism' become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/output/print

Teach the Controversy shirts

Get your very own wearable evolution statement over at Teach the Controversy. I vote these go in the swag bags at the next URMA conference!

This is the blurb from their site:

'Big Science is always suppressing The Truth with their blatant pro-evolution anti-wacko agenda: from the fact that UFOs built the pyramids to the reality of creationism and fact the universe is "Turtles All The Way Down." It is time to fight back and urge schools to Teach The Controversity with these intelligently designed t-shirts. All designs by Jeremy Kalgreen and are available in a variety of colors and styles, or feel free to create your own with our custom designer.

Sept. 19, 1982: the birth of :-)

Wherein we learn where those little rascals came from.

Friday poll results

How do you take notes in interviews?

• laptop: 1 vote (2%)


• recorder: 27 votes (77%)


• pen and paper: 26 votes (74%)


• other: 1 vote (2%)

Friday poll results

Your university is rocked by a controversy. Could you run a fair and balanced story about it without risking your neck?

• Yes, we've done it before: 5 votes (45%)


• Not sure...I'd have to talk to my boss: 3 votes (27%)


• I wouldn't even try it: 3 votes (27%)

Poe's "The Raven," translated into 50s hipster argot

From jazz poet Lord Buckley's "The Bugbird," a translation into the "semantic of the hip," circa 1950. (via boingBoing)

Eddie Allen Poe was a swinger.
He loved to en-joy that good whiskey
and chase them little ladies all over the place,
undstand what I mean?
Now, you see Poe didn't want that bird,
he didn't need the bird,
he didn't dig the bird,
he didn't send for the bird,
he didn't even know what aviary the bird came from.
If they've knocked the bird on him post paid
he wouldn't have dug it.

LHC FAQ PDQ (OK?)

Large Hadron Collider: Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios (wired.com)

Let pupils giv up spelling rules. There to hard.

Someone please let me be the first to string this guy up by his Buster Browns:

Children are being held back at school because they are forced to memorise irregular spellings and learn how to use the apostrophe, a leading academic will claim this week.... Professor Wells said that the apostrophe was an equal waste of time. "Instead of an apostrophe we could just leave it out (it's could become its) or leave a space (so we'll would become we ll). Have we really nothing better to do with our lives than fret about the apostrophe?"

Let pupils abandon spelling rules, says academic

Science education fail

Rainbows aren't just around our sun and our moon anymore. Now they're in the water supply. "We as a nation have got to ask ourselves: what in the hell is going on?"



Oh God, I haven't laughed that hard in... well, maybe ever.

Friday poll results

Do you edit your sources' quotes?

• Never (it's blasphemous): 2 votes (8%)


• Sometimes (to make them more clear, concise, etc.): 9 votes (39%)


• All the time (they're incoherent otherwise, and they get to approve their quotes anyway): 12 votes (52%)

Doctored Photos

Doctored Photos: 20 Memorable Picture Fakes (telegraph.uk)

Friday poll results

Does your mag run a column written by someone in your university's administration?

• Yes, every issue (we're required to): 7 votes (30%)


• Only occasionally (whenever one of our bigwigs needs a mouthpiece): 3 votes (13%)


• Hardly ever (only in special cases): 5 votes (21%)


• No way in hell are they getting in there (the honrary Conrad J. Storad answer): 8 votes (34%)

The 100-year-old photo blog

Check out some photographic highlights from the past 100 years over at Shorpy, the 100-year-old photo blog.

C_YK?

Stop the presses: Magenta Ain't A Color (Null Hypothesis)

I wonder why this never caught on?